The year 2018 had been declared as „European Year of Cultural Heritage“.

This title combines with “Europe” and “heritage” two of the three main topics European Heritage Volunteers is working on since a long time – the third topic, “volunteering”, plays so far a less important role in the discussions about and in the activities for the European cultural heritage than it could play.

Therefore, European Heritage Volunteers will link most of its activities planned for 2018 with the “European Year of Cultural Heritage” and carry out additional projects aiming to a higher acceptance of volunteering as an appropriate tool for the protection, the conservation and the awareness rising for European cultural heritage.

In particular, European Heritage Volunteers has developed a project under the title “Bestpractice models of volunteering for European Cultural Heritage” that had been selected by the German National Committee for Heritage Protection, the responsible body for the “European Year of Cultural Heritage” in Germany, as one of only few “projects of all-state relevance”.

The project aims to develop models for heritage volunteering projects in cooperation with different types of partners at different types of heritage sites while using different methods that will be later applicable in Germany as well as in other European countries.

The project shall illustrate the wide variety of cultural heritage and puts therefore a special focus on underappreciated types of heritage that are often in the shadow of the “traditional heritage” – as heritage at risk, prehistoric heritage, park & garden heritage, technical heritage or cultural landscapes. In addition, the project aims to underline the European character of cultural heritage while dealing with heritage sites where that European dimension is significant as for example at Jewish heritage and at transboundary heritage sites.

The project consists of one heritage volunteering project in conjunction with the European Heritage Summit, several practical heritage volunteering projects taking place all over Germany, one accompanying Social Media Volunteers forHeritage project and a final conference in the frame of the European Heritage Fair “denkmal”.

In addition, European Heritage Volunteers organises in the frame of the “European Year of Cultural Heritage” during summer 2018 “corresponding projects” in other European countries.

A final publication will content the project’s results, including the experiences of the projects in Germany and the “corresponding projects” in other European countries in the frame of the “European Year of Cultural Heritage” in 2018 as well as of the projects that had been started as an outcome of the “European Year of Cultural Heritage” in 2019 all over Europe.

More details will be available for the projects in Germany in January 2018, for the projects in other European countries in February 2018.